Time rolls on gathering speed and momentum as it goes. For many including myself taking on a four year fashion degree meant a captivating year of opportunities pre final collection. A wild card, a time to wet our lips with how life could be after education, a time to gain life skills, business skills, people skills, and most importantly fashion skills. 

July 2006 arrived and with it a job/placement in London and a dream move to the capital city swinging from every cavity. Living in Brick Lane was the perfect introduction to how I hoped my year would be, full of life, excitement, diversity and wall to wall vintage shopping. What more could a fashion student need for inspiration?

Work was great; I was relishing the challenge of my first real job in fashion. I enjoyed the working routine and the freedom from the shackles of University.  My chance to make a mark in a job for a very successful company and at the same time create a more dazzling CV which will hopefully set me apart from the masses when I have my degree in hand.  I’m sure I’ve heard that before…?

A couple of very inspiring work placements later, experience at press events, temping in exclusive boutiques and Head Offices, meeting a designer or two (surreal!) a hand in a few fashion shows and trips to Paris and Milan in my spare time, 2006/07 was shaping up to be a pretty great year. I felt like a bonafide member of the fashion Industry and I was savouring every minute of it, I was living the dream, but time was flying by too quickly. 

September 2007 arrived and with it London Fashion Week the pinnacle of a designers season, a chance to show their wares to the worlds media, glitterati and fashionistas. To draw in the public and wow them with the endless possibilities fashion can hold. I really wanted a piece of it, a first hand experience of LFW. What better way to end such a fantastic year but to be helping out on one of the two most important weeks in the fashion calendar. So it was to be that I had the opportunity to help dress at a few shows during fashion week and I could not hide my excitement. What a way to spend my final week in London before the start of term.  

The show I was most excited about was that of Carolyn Massey a fantastic Menswear Designer whose studio I have worked in for a large, extremely productive and enjoyable portion of my year.  It seemed so strange that a collection I’ve worked on with Carolyn would soon be worn by very pretty boys strutting down a catwalk wowing a hungry audience. ‘Fallen Heroes’ show time was set for 12pm on Monday of LFW at the Wilton Music Hall in Whitechapel. 

The team were given an ungracious call time of 8.30am.  Fashion, glamorous?  There was a real buzz backstage, everyone was charged and ready for action.  A fantastic team were running things behind the scenes with James Brown (James Brown London) on hair, make-up by Alex Box (MAC) and styling by Karl Plewka.  It really was a joy to see these leaders in their field working away on the very calm and collected male models. 

Show time approached and there was an unexpected air of cool, as everything was in hand and the show was only running a little late.  I was even able to go front of house and catch it first hand.  I was so elated at the outcome; the models effortlessly strolled down the staircase onto the catwalk in front of the awaiting audience looking dazzling in the bright lights.  The show went down a storm with the awaiting critics and I felt so proud of Carolyn for all her blood, sweat and tears, finally I was proud of myself for the small part I played in something so colossal.

After the come down of the show which marked the end of my placement in Carolyn’s studio I felt somewhat subdued.  Everything I had worked on these past six months had reached its climax and for Carolyn it was back to square one for the new season, but my mind instantly turned to affairs of the University variety. After spending just over a year in London trying my hand as a full time employee in Industry I did wonder how I would adjust to moving back ‘Up North’ to a much smaller University community and the constraints that go hand in hand with education. I find myself on the cusp of my final year with Graduation in sight not knowing whether to be excited or apprehensive  but under all the mixed emotions I have an inner urgency, fire, and passion to take the bull by the horns and run away with it, to achieve the sum of my entire life’s dreams.  And with this I know I’m ready for whatever challenges the next year may hold.

Gemma x